Entries from January 2010

I visited James Coviello for the first time yesterday and fell in love with his floor-length throwback glamour gowns inspired by Viennese Secessionists. I loved it so much I was back again an hour later. I think I need to get all my clothes there from now on...

I have been listening to Care Bears on Fire every day since we met, especially their cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." I also like "Barbie, Eat a Sandwich" and "Everybody Else."

In putting this show together, I liked the idea of turning the convention of who entertainment is made for on its head. At first glance, it might seem like this line-up is "for kids." But is it really? I thought it would be really cool to have a current teen band with an author who I discovered when I was a teen, reading Sassy magazine religiously like almost every other girl in America. If you've never heard of Sassy, there are two great books on it and related culture,How Sassy Changed My Lifeand the brand-newGirl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music. So this is our show for current teens and former teens, and everyone in-between.

Blake Nelson has had some breakout hits, Girl, Paranoid Park, Rock Star Superstar –– which the killer kid band Tiny Masters of Today, beloved by David Bowie, took its name from –– but my favorites of his are underdogs, Prom Anonymous (Sylvia Plath meets Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and They Came From Below (Buddhist environmental sci-fi adventure in Cape Cod & the sea).

Here he is narrating an excerpt of an arty short film he did when he was not much more than a teenager, probably, with his friend Jem Cohen, who later made the Fugazi documentary, Instrument:

I am going to be appearing at the Squam Art Workshops Readers Retreat this summer. Why did I agree to come? Because it was started by a Lux Lotus reader! And it sounds divine. Registration opens Monday. I'll host a literary salon some enchanted evening... Threads that might weave their way into our conversation may include
(but are not limited to): literary heroines, great poets, cafes, muses,
historical crushes, iconic artists, travels both real and imagined, and
creative approaches to the business of living informed by all of the
above.

Behold, my new coat! Well, in its newish incarnation. I bought it a few years ago in Omaha, my first time out; it's made of Kashmiracle. I wore it to some parties and when I was escorted to the plane via the runway, but it wasn't ...right. And I am incredibly precise about what I like. I gave it to my mother and it hung in her closet for a couple years until I was in Maryland the week before last and I thought of the orphaned coat, and I said, It's conceptually perfect; all it needs is for someone to take off the buttons, sew up the buttonholes, and make a sash belt out of the bottom two inches. And voila, the ladies at One Star Fashion on Canal Street did just that. My gift in this life is that I see things in terms of what they could be rather than as they are. It caused me agony throughout my '20s, the conflict, convincing others of value that is plain to me. I wasn't ready to embrace my gift. It wasn't the moment, and I had to learn a lot first. But I don't mind anymore. If everyone could see what I see, it wouldn't be my special skill.

Received today:I had the strangest dream last night and you were in it. I was on a
yacht docked in France with a bunch of people I didn't know who were
having a masquerade party on board. At one point we moved the party to
your apartment in Paris which looked similar to the apartment in the
Dreamers...

Today I stopped by Mark Milroy's Beaux Arts salon-style studio on the Upper West Side to help him select work for his upcoming show of portraiture and abstract landscapes, "Flora and Fauna." The best part was recognizing some scene queens in the mix, like Melissa Walker of I Heart Daily and super-agent Anna Stein! The gallery is in a private space in the Citibank building and not open to the public, but Lux Lotus readers are invited to attend the opening on February 23... write me for details and I'll share them.

Spring yet? Philosophically, feels like it could be. I'm planning ahead, taking inspiration where I find it... my friend Jonathan and his Thomas Hardy-quoting, bike-riding blog, chronicling a whole other city than the one I know... darling Alison and her burgeoning Algonquin-esque beach house scene, which includes novelist Alexander Chee, complete with its own apparel line.

But for an hour off for yoga, I worked twelve hours straight today. That means I get a present: a handmade Charlie Chiffon Sheer Top, "from the third Hopeless range entitled 'The Voyage' - based on
Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Taking inspiration from the sharks teeth, the
blood in the ocean and the waves of the sea." Heck yeah.